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Explore SCBWI Portfolio Showcase

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Deep Dive Into Nonfiction

2024

Ohio: North

Playing out themes of memory, folklore, and tradition in enthralling, often wildly inventive stories, Virginia Hamilton transformed American children’s literature. In her award-winning novels of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, she brought Black characters center stage, creating a multifaceted portrait of African American life that she called “liberation literature.” This volume collects five of her best-known and most beloved works.

Virginia Hamilton: Five Novels

Psychology: Why We Smile, Strive, and Sing introduces students to the science behind behavior. From the developing teenage brain to genetics, psychology, and social environments, readers ages 12 to 15 gain a greater understanding of the complexities behind how we behave. Why does one person react to test anxiety by studying harder while another person gives up? As with all other behavior, the answer depends on many things: genetics, cultural and family expectations, previous behaviors, and a person’s own special blend of attitudes and values. Plenty of text-to-self and text-to-world connections provide a foundation for deeper learning.• Hands-on STEM activities and research projects such as testing teenage risk-taking thought processes, conformity experiments, and exploring mindfulness and empathy engage readers beyond the text.• Psychology includes graphic novel style illustrations, fascinating sidebars, and interesting trivia.• Psychology integrates a digital learning component by providing links to primary sources, videos, and other relevant websites. Text-to-self and text-to-world connections make learning applicable and fundamental.

Psychology: Why We Smile, Strive, and Sing

Christine Brennan, the USA Today sports columnist, author, and commentator, uses her voice to advocate for diversity and equality in the world of sports, and her wisdom to encourage future journalists. Her passion for sports was sparked by her dad, who encouraged her to participate in athletics and, as he said, “smell the game”—go watch baseball and football games together.As a child, Christine wrote daily entries in her diary and listened to play-by-play coverage on her radio. She pursued this love of words through journalism school and applied her passion for sports by reporting on them for various newspapers. Since then, she has portrayed the setbacks and triumphs of athletes, all the while fighting her own battles for success—and respect—as a female journalist.From knocking down barriers in NFL locker rooms to covering every Olympics since 1984 to being the go-to commentator whenever scandal occurs in the sports world, Christine Brennan has done it all. Eye to Eye invites young readers to learn more about this remarkable journalist and perhaps to nurture their own dreams of investigating and telling important stories.

Eye to Eye: Sports Journalist Christine Brennan

Long before she wrote The House of Dies Drear, M. C. Higgins, the Great, and many other children’s classics, Virginia Hamilton grew up among her extended family near Yellow Springs, Ohio, where her grandfather had been brought as a baby through the Underground Railroad. The family stories she heard as a child fueled her imagination, and the freedom to roam the farms and woods nearby trained her to be a great observer. In all, Hamilton wrote forty-one books, each driven by a focus on “the known, the remembered, and the imagined”—particularly within the lives of African Americans. Over her thirty-five-year career, Hamilton received every major award for children’s literature. This new biography gives us the whole story of Virginia’s creative genius, her passion for nurturing young readers, and her clever way of crafting stories they’d love.

Virginia Hamilton: America's Storyteller

Growing up in Ladora, Iowa, Mildred “Millie” Benson had ample time to develop her imagination and sense of adventure. While still a journalism graduate student at the University of Iowa, Millie began writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which published the phenomenally popular Hardy Boys series, among others. Soon, Millie was tapped for a new series starring amateur sleuth Nancy Drew, a young, independent woman not unlike Millie herself. Under the pen name Carolyn Keene, Millie wrote the first book, The Secret of the Old Clock, and twenty-two other Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. In all, Millie wrote more than a hundred novels for young people.Millie was also a journalist for the Toledo Times and the Toledo Blade. At sixty-two, she obtained her pilot’s license. Follow the clues throughout Missing Millie to discover the story of this ghostwriter, journalist, and adventurer.

Missing Millie Benson: The Secret Case of the Nancy Drew Ghostwriter and Journalist

Julie Rubini

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Books

Virginia Hamilton: Five Novels

Psychology: Why We Smile, Strive, and Sing

Eye to Eye: Sports Journalist Christine Brennan

Virginia Hamilton: America's Storyteller

Missing Millie Benson: The Secret Case of the Nancy Drew Ghostwriter and Journalist

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